Escape From Five Shadows Page 5

  In the morning, they would hear Renda or Brazil in front of the barracks lining up the convicts for the wagon trip to the construction site. Then, throughout the day, there was silence, long hours of dead silence only occasionally broken by the sound of a horse crossing the compound.

  In the evening, after the convicts were in the barracks again, the faint murmur of voices, bits of conversation that were never completely clear, would drift into the darkness of the punishment cell. Bowen would sit with his back against the adobe not moving, listening for Manring’s voice. But thinking of Manring, wanting to be sure he would still be here at the end of twenty days, made the time pass even more slowly.

  Why had Manring warned Renda that he was planning to escape?

  Pryde said, because he’s paid for it. He had seen the same thing at Yuma. There were special privileges for the convict who kept the guards informed on what was going on inside the cell blocks. And, Pryde said, there was only one way to deal with that kind.

  Maybe it was that simple. But Bowen went over in his mind everything he knew about Manring, trying to find a more personal reason.

  They had met in a saloon of the Commercial House Hotel in Prescott just a little more than a year ago—Bowen with a trail drive behind him and for the time being nothing to do; Manring looking for a man to help him move a small herd down to San Carlos—the two of them standing at the bar. A few minutes after they started talking, they moved to a table.

  “Ordinarily,” Manring had explained, “I work for a spread same as anybody else, but I heard about this cry for beef down at San Carlos and saw it was a chance to make something if you had a little capital.” And taking a bill of sale out of his pocket—“The reservation’s grown bigger than the government beef allowance, so now they got to buy more. But they’re buying monthly, just a hundred head or so at a time and it don’t pay the big owner to take a herd down there. That’s why somebody like you or me can make money out of it if you got stock to sell.” He pointed to the bill of sale. “Which I got.”

  Bowen said it sounded all right to him. He was thinking about going down to Willcox to talk to a friend about a mining venture and if he could work his way down that was all the better.

  The next morning they started driving the herd—forty head they had gathered themselves. Bowen noticed none of the steers had been vent-branded and he asked Manring about it.

  “Why go to the trouble of registering a brand,” Manring answered, “then waste time putting it on when you’ll only have the stock about a week? A bill of sale’s good enough to prove ownership.”

  When Bowen opened his eyes the next morning, a man he had never seen before was standing over him with a rifle. There were eight or ten others in the clearing and a moment later he saw Manring brought in. Manring was mounted and it was evident he had tried to run when the posse closed in.

  They were taken back to Prescott and formally charged that afternoon, the complaint being signed by R. A. McLaughlin, the man from whom Manring claimed to have bought the cattle. Luckily (the sheriff said) a district judge would be in Prescott the next day—so there wouldn’t be a delay in the trial.

  Bowen remembered that first night in a jail cell clearly—watching Manring lying on his bunk smoking and for a long time neither of them spoke. But there were some things Bowen wanted to say and finally—

  “If you’d vented McLaughlin’s brand at the time of the sale we wouldn’t be in jail.” He was sorry as soon as he’d said it. That if-talking was like closing the barn after everything had run out. But Manring drew on his cigarette, not bothering to answer, and Bowen could feel his anger begin to rise.

  “Why didn’t you vent his brand when you closed the deal?”

  Manring’s head turned on the mattress. “I told you.”

  “Earl…this McLaughlin said you worked for him once, about three years ago. Took you on for a Kansas drive.”

  “I heard him.”

  “You claimed that wasn’t so.”

  Manring stubbed out the cigarette. “You going to do the hearing all over again?”

  “Earl”—he remembered that his voice was calm and that he wasn’t yet really angry—“did you buy those cattle or did you steal them?”

  Manring was on his back, staring at the ceiling. “I don’t want to hear any more about it.”

  “Earl, they’re going to try me tomorrow for something I don’t know anything about!”

  “Have a good cry,” Manring muttered.

  Bowen rose. “I asked you a question. I want to know if you really bought that stock!”

  “So does the judge,” Manring said. He started to roll over, turning his back to Bowen, but suddenly Bowen was dragging him up by the arm and as he came off the bunk Bowen hit him. He hit Manring four times before the sheriff’s deputy came in to separate them.

  The trial began at ten o’clock the next morning. At noon they recessed for dinner and for the jury to reach a decision. Then at two o’clock that afternoon the judge passed sentence. Seven years in the Territorial Prison at Yuma. There had been no time wasted. It was McLaughlin’s word against Manring’s and as far as both the judge and the jury were concerned, this was not a two-sided question. In sentencing them, the judge admitted being lenient, since to his knowledge neither of the accused had a previous criminal record.

  That night Bowen and Manring were placed in separate cells to await transportation to Yuma.

  For the next nine months, on Prison Hill, Bowen saw Manring every day, but they seldom spoke. He made himself believe that Manring was also innocent. That made it easier to live with him. Still, they had little in common and there was no reason for a friendship to exist between them. Gradually, then, he ceased to even think about Manring and the trial and he began to consider him nothing more than another Yuma convict. Being in different cells—though both were in the main cell block—made it that much easier.

  From the first day he entered Yuma, Bowen thought of escape. He had made up his mind that he was not going to pay with seven years for something he didn’t do. But thinking of escaping from Yuma you had to consider the Gatling gun over the main gate, the hundreds of miles of desert surrounding the prison, the Pima trackers who would bring you back for a bounty and, finally, the “Snake den” cell in the dungeon block where you would live for a month or more, chained to the stone floor, if the escape failed.

  During the time they were at Yuma, construction of the cell block for incorrigibles was still in progress—a project planned to carve a dungeon of twelve cells out of solid granite. Bowen was assigned to the dynamite crew; and it was the experience gained in this work that was primarily responsible for his leaving Yuma some months later.

  Their transfer came unexpectedly. Bowen, Manring and four other convicts—one of them Pryde—were taken from their cells one evening soon after supper. Nineteen days later, a wagon rolled through the barbed wire gate of the convict camp at Five Shadows as Frank Renda stood by to greet them.

  In their three months here, Bowen had talked to Manring more often; and only a few days before the supply trip to Pinaleño, Manring had hinted at a plan of escape. But by then, Bowen had made up his mind to try it his own way and Manring’s hints had been too vague to even arouse his curiosity.

  Still, he thought now, Manring had considered him in his escape plan. That was the point. That was the main reason Pryde’s story of Manring informing on him left a question in his mind.

  There were twenty-two marks on the wall the morning Brazil opened the door and told them to come out. As soon as they were outside, both men lifting a hand to shield the sun from their eyes, and unexpectedly noticing the convicts grouped along the front of the barracks watching them, Brazil slammed the heavy door and walked away.

  “It’s Sunday,” Bowen said.

  Pryde was looking toward the convicts. “He’s not there.”

  “Let me worry about Manring,” Bowen said.

  He walked along the front of the barracks, every convict in the
yard watching him, and those near him nodded as he approached then moved aside as he entered the barracks. Over the yard there was a silence.

  Two convicts playing a card game looked up as he entered. They seemed to hesitate. Then one of them began dealing the cards again. The other convict looked past the dealer, down the length of the adobe, down the row of straw mats that were lined along the wall, before his gaze dropped to the cards again.

  Manring was lying on his side, his eyes closed and his left arm pillowing his head. Then his eyes opened, raising from Bowen’s shoes up to his face.

  “Corey, you look thinner.”

  Bowen said nothing, but his gaze remained on Manring’s bearded face. He heard a step behind and he knew it was Pryde.

  “And a few shades paler,” Manring said.

  There was a momentary silence before Bowen said, “You might be about to get your teeth kicked out.”

  Manring pushed himself up. “You better go easy.” His eyes shifted to Pryde, then to Bowen again. “What for?”

  “You told Renda I was going to jump the wagon.”

  “Ike told me…the first day.”

  Manring’s eyes went to Pryde again. “And what exactly did Ike tell you?”

  “That Renda said something to you…like, ‘You said not till the grade.’ ”

  “When was that?”

  “Right after I jumped.”

  Manring’s jaw relaxed. “How would Ike know? He’d just had his head busted with a Winchester.”

  “But he was still awake.”

  “All right.” Manring shrugged. “Maybe Renda said that. I don’t know—there was a lot of shooting going on. But if he said it, he didn’t say it to me.”

  “Who would he say it to, Brazil?”

  “Who else is there! Listen, you’re accusing me of something you don’t know anything about. Get your facts straight before you come marching in here like a couple of vigilantes!”

  “I got mine straight,” Pryde said. “You know it and I know it.”

  Manring shook his head. “After Brazil busted you, you started hearing things.”

  “Corey might not be sure,” Pryde said. “But I am. I was there. I heard Renda say it right to your face—”

  “What did I say to his face?”

  Renda stood in the doorway behind them, then came forward a few steps as Bowen and Pryde half turned. “What did I say?”

  Pryde shook his head. “Nothing.”

  “Ike, you want to go back in the closet?”

  Pryde did not answer and for a long moment Renda stared at him. His eyes moved to Bowen then. “You two spend three weeks in the house and when I let you out you come right back in.” He paused. “You like being inside?” He answered his own question saying, “All right, we’ll give you some inside work. Ike, you and your friend Corey go over and clean out the stable. Rub down the horses, too.” He turned to go, then looked back. “And Ike…don’t come out till the sun goes down.”

  Lizann Falvey watched her husband finish the whiskey in his glass, seeing his hand come down slowly to the table and release the glass almost reluctantly. The table was across the room, at least a dozen feet away, but she could see that the bottle was empty.

  Now a trip to Fuegos, she thought. She was sitting in a canvas chair studying Willis and wondering how long he would last.

  He’ll go to Fuegos to finish what he has started and come back tomorrow with six bottles, three in each saddle bag. You can look forward to that. And in a few days you can look forward to it again. Then again…and again—

  She sat and watched him, waiting. Waiting for him to look up from the table, but he continued to study the label of the whisky bottle and finally she said, “Willis—”

  His head turned. “What?”

  “In the top drawer of my dresser,” Lizann said, “there’s a gun. I believe you called it a .25-caliber Colt. Why don’t you take it and go for a ride up into the hills.”

  Willis frowned. “What?”

  “Or just go behind the adobe,” Lizann said. “I thought at first I’d rather not hear the shot, but on second thought it really wouldn’t matter.”

  “What are you trying to say?”

  “I’m not trying to say anything. I’m telling you to put a gun to your head and be done with it.”

  The whisky had relaxed him, had made him drowsy and it cushioned somewhat the shock of her words. His expression scarcely changed.

  “You sincerely hate me, don’t you?”

  Lizann shook her head. “That’s putting it too simply. I suppose there are moments when I think I hate you, but most of the time I can feel only disgust. You hate a man like Frank Renda who is strong enough to be hated and you would hate even a memory of him. With your kind, Willis, you feel either sorrow or disgust and when that’s passed you’re hardly worth a memory—a feeling of indifference at best.”

  Willis stared. “Why don’t you leave me?”

  “Don’t you think I would if I could?”

  “What’s stopping you?”

  “What’s stopping me?” Lizann repeated without tone in her voice. “Willis, I think I’m beginning to feel sorry for you. You don’t even fully realize the kind of man you’re dealing with. Do you think Frank Renda would let me leave?”

  “You go for rides. You could keep going.”

  “I have never gone out without one of Salvaje’s men following me.”

  “I go to Fuegos,” Willis said. “No one follows me.”

  “Renda doesn’t have to watch you. He even admitted that. You’re your own watchdog, Willis.”

  “Renda’s very sure of himself.”

  Lizann shrugged. “He’s in a position to be.” Her expression softened then. “But, Willis…he doesn’t have any more on you than you do on him.”

  “So?”

  “So…report him.”

  “Just like that.”

  “Be a man one time in your life!”

  “Which is easy for you to say. But you’re not the one that goes to prison.”

  “You’re already in prison. We both are.”

  “Then,” Willis said, “we might as well stay where we are.”

  Lizann rose from the chair and walked to the window. Her gaze went over the yard to the convicts sitting and leaning against the front of the barracks, then came back as she saw Frank Renda leave the shade of the ramada and start across toward them. Her eyes followed him until he reached the barracks and went in the first door, then she turned to her husband again.

  “Are you going to Fuegos today?”

  Willis looked up. “I thought I would.”

  “Willis…when you get there, what would stop you from taking the stage to Tucson?”

  His breath came out wearily and he shook his head.

  “Listen to me! In Tucson you could write to the Bureau. Within two weeks someone would be here to investigate.”

  “And two weeks later I’d be in jail.”

  “No! After you send the letter, go somewhere else.”

  “Would you meet me?”

  Lizann hesitated. “Haven’t you had enough of this?”

  “If I thought we could start over—”

  “There is only one way to do that, Willis. But not together. God knows, not together. Think about getting out of here. Let what comes later take care of itself.”

  He shook his head then. “Sooner or later I’d be caught. Going to prison is one thing. Perhaps I could take a year or so of it to get out of this mess. But I’d also be killing my career.”

  “Your career!” Lizann’s voice rose. “A bookkeeper in a convict camp! That’s your career—that’s what your big political friends think of you. They’ve put you away, out of their hair. Don’t you realize that?”

  “You didn’t think that way a year ago,” Willis said.

  “I’m talking about now!”

  “When you married me,” Willis said, “you were sure I had a future. Or else you wouldn’t have considered it.”

&nbs
p; “With a clean collar on,” Lizann said, “you can fool almost anyone.”

  Willis was silent, studying the bottle again. Lizann waited. Finally he looked up. “It wouldn’t be worth the chance.”

  “How do you know, unless you try it?”

  He shook his head. “I’d be hiding out the rest of my life.”

  “I wouldn’t,” Lizann said calmly. “I’m asking you to do it for me.”

  He looked at her as if to answer, but his gaze dropped and he pushed himself up from the table. Lizann watched him go into the bedroom and when he reappeared, moving past her without raising his eyes, he was carrying his hat and saddle bags. She saw him hesitate as he opened the door and he turned to her again.

  “I’m sorry, Lizann. I’m sincerely sorry.”

  “For me, Willis…or for yourself?”

  “I think for both of us.” He stepped outside, closing the door behind him.

  Lizann turned to the window again. She was watching her husband cross the yard when Bowen and Pryde came out of the barracks and followed Willis to the stable.

  So he’s out, Lizann thought. Why couldn’t he have been Willis?

  No, she thought then. You made the mistake yourself. And you’ll live with it the rest of your life unless you do something. You should have been more patient. There were others. But you guessed wrong and picked Willis—who was then what he is now. So you can’t really blame Willis.

  They had met in Washington less than a year before. Three weeks later they were married. Lizann: a young woman whose father had been killed at Second Bull Run a year after she was born, killed in a cavalry action, leaving wife and daughter a name, but very little money to support the name. And Willis: a young man whose father, also with a name, had also died, leaving his son sole heir to a moderately large estate. But it was not until after their wedding and honeymoon that Lizann learned Willis had gambled away almost his entire inheritance. All that remained were the stories of his fortune—the same stories which had attracted Lizann to him. Still, she was not yet discouraged. Willis did have influential friends. And a political appointment was in the offing. Three months later they were in Prescott. There, Willis was told he would serve “somewhat as a liaison man” between the territorial government, the military and a privately operated road construction project. A few weeks later they were at Five Shadows. After the first day, Lizann fully realized the mistake she had made.